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Mac
Ronald "Mac" McDonald 'is a co-owner and sheriff of Paddy's Pub and generally the pub's most active manager. He is roommates with his best friend from , Dennis Reynolds, and has been best friends with Charlie Kelly since childhood. Mac is a member of The Gang which also includes Dee and Frank. Mac is the self proclaimed Sheriff of Paddy's. Mac gets upset at injustices, but will pounce on any opportunity he sees as a fair chance to bang or make money. He was proud of his body and weight gain during Season 7, and is secretly ashamed of returning to his regular size. Mac is portrayed by Rob McElhenney. Personality Mac comes from a broken home; his father Luther was an incarcerated meth dealer, and his mother was extremely apathetic. Self-image Mac is obsessed with being tough and looking like a badass. Mac constantly seeks acceptance of his parents, but his over-earnest efforts make him come off as an asshole. He has a series of project badass videos that involve him doing various stunts to make him look tough, badass, or like a dare devil. Mac frequently strives to appear "hard," usually to impress his father or friends. In reality though, he is a coward. Mac is highly competitive, and is unable to control his competitiveness. For example, when he learned that Charlie and the McPoyle brothers were possibly sexually molested by their—and Mac's—elementary school gym teacher, he feels rejected and worries that he is somehow inferior for having not been molested himself. He proceeds to research why he didn't get molested, stating that, "If the McPoyles got blown, and Charlie got blown, then why didn't I get blown?" Mac is jealous of other people's success. Although he seeks his friends' acceptance, Mac takes special pleasure in undermining, physically harming, contradicting, and publicly belittling Sweet Dee at every possible opportunity. Mac is easily flattered and manipulated, especially if complimented about his body or his fighting skills. He had had an ongoing sexual relationship with a pre-op trans woman named Carmen, largely because she was so adept at flattering him about his buff body. He claimed that he was just "putting in time" as he waited for her surgery. Due to his inflated and fragile self-image, Mac is riddled with insecurities and often places great pressure on himself to look superior or not fail at anything. Consequentially, when given an unwanted position, he will attempt to use it to glamourise himself, such as, when being forced to referee the Gang's drinking challenge in "The Gang Beats Boggs" due to losing a chugging contest, Mac immediately convinces himself the Gang made him "Bud Selig", despite being repeatedly told that "noone did", and takes his refereeing duties far too seriously, to the point that Charlie tries to calm him down. In "The Gang Goes To Hell", thinking he has "failed" at a game, he gets extremely emotional and produces a cat-o-nine-tails for someone to beat him with "so he can be a better boy", implying he punishes himself harshly for every perceived failure. At one point described by Dennis as being "in complete denial about absolutely every aspect of his life", Mac is the most openly self-delusional of the Gang, clinging to various fantasies about being tough, badass, a good Catholic, and, in particular, loved by his cold and exploitative father. Whenever anything happens to puncture these self-deceptions, he immediately twists or rationalises his perception of them to fit with his view of himself and the world. Position in the Gang Like Dennis, Mac sees himself as superior to the rest of The Gang and often attempts to prove his supremacy. For instance, in an attempt to impress Charlie and Dennis, he makes a series of "Project Badass" videotapes that consist of various idiotic stunts; however, the pair believes that Mac is just trying to "bang" them. Mac sees himself as the boss in most situations and the gang constantly complains about his bossiness. Religion A Catholic, Mac is the only member of The Gang to profess a religious faith. In "The Gang Exploits A Miracle", Mac fears that the Lord show his wrath if they continue to exploit the water stain in the bar. Throughout the series Mac refuses to wear a condom during sex, because as he explains Charlie he went to Catholic school. Though Mac seems to care more about issues such as abortion, community activism, and parenting than the rest of The Gang, his views on such subjects are invariably twisted, ignorant, or prejudiced, and his actions regarding them are always hypocritical and selfish. For instance, after pretending to be adamantly pro-life in order to attract a female activist, Mac later demands that she get an abortion when he thinks she has become pregnant by him. In another instance involving the transgender woman Carmen, Mac discovers that she has married and had the operation to remove her penis. He then belittles Carmen and her husband by quoting the Bible to them and calling them "gay"; however he only reacts so because he expected Carmen to call him once she had the operation so they could date again. Mac constantly drinks alcohol like the rest of The Gang and abuses other substances, such as poppers and glue. Sexuality Mac prefers not to use condoms, even when he's having sex with people he doesn't know. He only reluctantly agrees to wear a condom with the Waitress in "Mac's Banging the Waitress". There is much evidence that Mac is harboring one or more STDs. Mac seems to have a thing for older women. He had sex with Dennis and Dee's mom, Barbara Reynolds, later saying it was the best sex of his life. He also expressed interest in Barbara's sister, Aunt Donna. Mac places sex above friendship, and has betrayed his two best friends by dating or having sex with women very important to them: * In high school, Mac had sex with Dennis' prom date and blamed it on Tim Murphy. * Later, Mac started secretly dating the Waitress despite Charlie's obsession with her. Throughout the series there have been insinuations that Mac is a closeted gay man. This is manifested by his obsession with men's physiques and his reactionary religious views on homosexuality. Some examples of Mac exhibiting behaviors or saying things that make it appear that he may be gay: * In the final scene of the season 4 episode "Mac's Banging the Waitress" Charlie says to Dennis, "Do you still get the feeling he wants to bang us? That's what this is all about" after Mac tries to demonstrate how "badass" he is by falling from the roof onto a pile of mattresses after lighting fireworks taped to his jacket that fail to ignite. * In the Season 6 finale, "Dee Gives Birth", as Charlie and Mac discuss the fact that one of possible fathers of Dee's baby is Rex, Mac calls Rex a "quality lay". * In episode 2 of season 8, "The Gang Recycles Their Trash" Mac makes an attempt to kiss Dennis following a rally with Charlie and themselves. * Also in season 8, in "Charlie Rules the World", Charlie asks Mac to watch Dee while Charlie goes and meets an online girl in person, to which Mac insinuates he'd like to meet any of her friends if they're fat or ugly or sick. Charlie then replies with a 'yeah, sure, if they're ugly or sick or male or female, whatever it is that you like'. * In the season 9 episode "Mac Day" Charlie says, "I know we've never said this as a group, but Mac's gay," to which the rest of The Gang agrees readily. Also as part of Mac Day, Mac forces The Gang to oil male bodybuilders, which gives him an erection. He also gets an erection in the episode when he is preaching to The Gang about the wrongs of homosexuality. * He refuses to talk about his "mission" at the Rainbow, a gay bar in Philly. * While on a Christian cruise Mac attempts to "cure" a gay couple but instead is lured into their cabin. He imprisons himself in the brig with the rest of the gang confessing "well, I'm gay" to no surprise from his friends. When he is rescued from the ship he immediately says it was a test from God and he's not actually gay. Abilities Mac is extremely clean, and very good at keeping his apartment extremely tidy. He even cleaned up Charlie's filthy apartment after he moved in with Charlie and Frank, after Dennis kicked him out. Mac believes he is a natural story-teller. Weaknesses Mac has a delusional belief in his abilities as a security professional. He thinks of himself as "The Sheriff of Paddy's" and believes he can achieve feats of strength, assess strangers for security, and that he is highly skilled at combat. Despite this, Mac has fared poorly in physical altercations and feats of strength: * Mac was beat up when he replaced Charlie and fought in a fight club. * Mac failed in his attempt to climb the outside of Charlie's apartment building. * Mac was going to beat up Bruce Mathis in a fight, but ran away from him instead. * Mac attempted a roundhouse kick to the front window of a car, but missed and kicked the drivers side mirror instead. * Mac does an "ocular patdown" of a hitchhiker and assessed him as safe; later, the hitchhiker steals Dee's car. * When Mac and Charlie are stuck at the bottom of an abandoned swimming pool that they are trying to fix, Mac attempts to get out of the pool by doing a "backflip" out of it, scaling the wall, but he doesn't even come close to getting out. * Mac's "exit strategy" to get out of a luxury box the Gang has schemed their way into at a Phillies' game is to "spring off the balcony to safety". When Dennis points out that it's a 50 foot drop, Mac says that he will be able to "tuck and roll" and thus survive the drop unscathed. In a similar vein, Mac also maintains a threat level assessment for the bar. Ordinarily the threat level is set to Orange, but Mac has upgraded the threat level to Yellow. Mac often has trouble thinking up of the right word to convey his ideas, which Dennis is often more than glad to provide. Mac is also a poor typist. Early Life In Season 1, Mac was 28 years old - which means he was born in 1977. When Mac was young, his parents would break into houses with him on Christmas to steal presents. Growing up, his best friend was Charlie. Every Christmas, they'd get together and throw rocks at trains. Mac's father is Luther Mac. At some point during his childhood, Luther was sentenced to prison for dealing meth. Dennis notes that Mac only survived high school by selling weed to popular kids, and even then was considered a jerk. In high school, Mac was called "Ronnie the Rat," due to his propensity for tattling. He narced on the previous weed dealer in order to get a foothold on dealing himself. Trivia * Mac is a terrible dancer. * Mac has at least 2 gay cousins: Brett and Country Mac . * When Mac was young, he had an invincible dog named Poppins. * Mac has only two numbers in his phone - Charlie and . * Mac originally introduces Mac's duster to the Gang. * Mac's full name was unclear for most of the first seven seasons. In the season four episode "The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell", the Colonial-era Mac character is referred to as "McDonald." In 7th Season "The High School Reunion", his full name is revealed to be "Ronald McDonald." * It was initially hinted that Mac's last name is simply, "Mac". On parole papers seen in "Mac and Charlie Die (Part 1)", Mac's father's name is listed as "Luther Mac" and his mother is usually referred to as Mrs. Mac. * In the Season 10 episode "The Gang Goes On Family Fight", Mac introduces himself as "Ronald Reynolds", and says that Frank has adopted him. Whether this is indeed the case, or this is something they made up to get him on the show, is unclear at this time. * In the episode "Who Got Dee Pregnant?", one of the McPoyle Brothers referred to Mac as "'Macwell". * Mac often says his signature line, "What's up, bitches?", throughout the series. * In many episodes, Mac will enter the bar announcing "I've got news," or a variation on that basic idea, to set the episode's plot in motion. The others rarely share his enthusiasm, but he usually convinces one of them to follow him, though often reluctantly. This running joke was an ironical failed in the beginning of "Chardee MacDennis". * Mac keeps a karate trophy in his childhood room - which is not weird at all: he found it in the street. * Throughout the series, Mac flashes his signature "puppy-dog look" when he is ashamed or when he proposes something reprehensibly shameful. * Mac is one of the characters on the show who use their name (or a variant of their name) as their stage name. Among the other people who do this are Artemis and Charlie. * Mac had always considered for Paddy's to be an "Irish Catholic bar". Here is his full-of-righteous-anger question to the Gang: "Where's our goddamn Bible?!". Later, in "Sweet Dee Gets Audited", Mac was stated it literally: "...we're an Irish Catholic bar". * Mac is not familiar with Stalin. * Mac sometimes uses the alias, Vic Vinegar. ("Frank's Back in Business") * Mac's sexuality can sometimes be questioned ("Flowers for Charlie") * Despite being very religious, he breaks the "rules" of the Bible multiple times during the show. * Mac's name has been used in the titles for multiple different episodes: ** : "Mac Bangs Dennis' Mom" ** : "Mac Is a Serial Killer" ** : "Mac and Dennis: Manhunters", "Mac's Banging the Waitress", "Mac and Charlie Die (Part 1)", "Mac and Charlie Die (Part 2)" ** : "Mac and Dennis Break Up", "Mac and Charlie Write a Movie" ** : "Mac Fights Gay Marriage", "Mac's Big Break". "Mac and Charlie: White Trash", "Mac's Mom Burns Her House Down" ** : "Chardee MacDennis: The Game of Games", "How Mac Got Fat" ** : "Mac and Dennis Buy a Timeshare", "Mac Day" ** : "Mac Kills His Dad", "Ass Kickers United: Mac and Charlie Join a Cult" * Rob McElhenney, the actor who portrays Mac, is married to Kaitlin Olson, the actress who portrays Dee. * Mac is technically the only member of the Gang to physically appear in every episode, as Frank is absent in season 1, he and Dee are absent in "Mac's Banging the Waitress" and "The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell" (though they have old timey counterparts), and everyone but Mac is only shown in flashbacks while he confesses in "How Mac Got Fat". Relationships * Charlie and Mac * Dennis and Mac * Mac and Dee * Mac and Frank Bangs Mac has banged the following people: * Megan - a pro-life woman who tests Mac's sincerity against abortion after a protest at a Planned Parenthood building. * Barbara Reynolds - Dennis and Dee's Mom. * Z-Man's sister and Sully's sister - Mac banged both of their sisters, so he couldn't invite them to his party at Dennis' new house. * Carmen - Pre-op trans woman. * Dominique and Tabitha - model contestants in "America's Next Top Paddy's Billboard Model Contest" (they also banged each other and let Mac watch). * Numerous unnamed leftovers from the DENNIS System using the MAC system (Move-in After Completion). * Margaret McPoyle - shown in a flashback of the Halloween the year before. * Dennis's prom date. ("She was gross.") ("The High School Reunion.") * See Also * Mac's duster * Mac's apartment * Project Badass Category:It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Characters Category:Main characters Category:Season 1 characters Category:Season 2 characters Category:Season 3 characters Category:Season 4 characters Category:Season 5 characters Category:Season 6 characters Category:Season 7 characters Category:The Gang Category:Males Category:Season 8 characters